


The Flipside of the Galleon

by NikitaRia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Mentioned Arthur Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 04:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14686236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaRia/pseuds/NikitaRia
Summary: Percy will not regret his fight with Arthur. Even Bill will not change his mind on that.Where Percy lets off his frustrations, and Bill learns of Percy's side of the fight with Arthur.





	The Flipside of the Galleon

**Author's Note:**

> Some canon-welding here. At the start of OotP, the twins say that Bill’s already gotten a desk job, and he’s been seeing Fleur, with little else besides that. Imagine this occurring sometime throughout book 5. Bill’s indeed gotten a desk job at Gringotts, but he’s still travelling to and from Egypt, wrapping things up there. Then pre-HBP, he’s permanently moved back to the UK, where Harry then learns of his wedding as in canon.

Nine o’clock is a terrible time to go back home. It’s four hours past quitting time at the Ministry, and as a general rule, most of the shops and stores were closed, magical streets deserted. Percy’s taken to wandering around Muggle London when he leaves the Ministry late. There, at least, he could count on some fast food – a hilarious misnomer, with the speed that the Muggles used to make what should barely be even called food – to get through the night. (Though, sometimes, Percy finds himself craving just that amount of grease, and sweetness, in whatever it is that they put in their so-called fast food.) Other times, Percy just… wanders. Walking, putting one foot before the other, smoggy London in his nostrils and a fistful of Muggle money exchanged for Galleons from Gringotts besides his wand in his pants pocket. Not his coat; Percy’s stopped doing that since he witnessed a sneaky thief slip a wallet out of another stranger’s coat without him realising it. Percy had been too far away to stop him without risking breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

Funny. For all his - _Arthur_ loves Muggles, Percy feels like he has never done this before. He was forever looking at them through the lens of a scholar, several steps removed from the actual Muggles.

Ron had once said that Arthur looked at Muggles the way Hagrid looked at his magical creatures. Percy had scarcely held his tongue from correcting Ron – Hagrid looked at his magical creatures like friends and treated them with… with empathy. Show them what was acceptable or unacceptable to do. Hagrid was a bit batty when it came to them, and he was not entirely reliable or trustworthy, but he had a heart of gold where it mattered. Arthur – Arthur didn’t. He looked at them how Percy would look at rats he was supposed to use for Transfiguration.

His mother had her own misgivings and bias about how Arthur was so obsessed with all things Muggle. Percy listened to tired grumbles and heated words, absorbing it all even when he didn’t intend to while the twins and Ron and Ginny played outside with Bill and Charlie, before they both left home the moment they had graduated from Hogwarts.

Sometimes, he wonders if it’d have been different if he had followed their footsteps in that, too.

“Want a good time, cutie?” A muggle girl, with painted skin and a skirt short enough that he’s inclined to blush. “I’ll give you a discount.”

“No thank you,” Percy says, to which she laughs. “Aren’t you cold?”

“It’s only going to get colder from here on now, sweetie. How about I warm you up a little bit?” She winks at him. “I could get another friend for you, if you’d like. Make it a real party.”

“No thank you, and here, hold this,” Percy hands her his coat. It’s not dragon leather, just wool, but it’s warm. It’s a trick he’s read in some book, that has stuck and proven itself time and time again ; how strange that people will automatically reach and accept something that’s held out to them when you ask them to, even when you’re a stranger. “Stay warm.”

He’s several feet away before he hears her startled delight, and a grin tugs at his own lips when he hears her call out to him to have a nice night. The traffic lights turn green, and he blends in with the crowd, taking a walk to nowhere in particular. Smoggy London makes him miss the Burrow, and even Hogwarts. Far out in the country, with all the stars spread out above him to see whenever he wanted to. Not that he often did, now that Percy thinks about it. Too busy, always, people and study and work and people taking up most of his time and attention.

There were some starry nights he remembered, though. Oliver convincing Percy to slip out of their dorms on his broom and fly to the top of Gryffindor tower because he _needs the fresh air, Percy, please, the dorm’s so claustrophobic, and I don’t want to go up there alone._ Oliver lives somewhere far-flung even for wizards, the only son, with plenty of space for himself. Percy’s shared with Oliver exactly once about his frustrations over his houseful of siblings. It was enough for Oliver to declare those nights on top of Gryffindor tower an actual thing between them, even after Percy’s made prefect and head boy.

He shared more with Penelope. They’ve always been friends since pairing up for Transfiguration in their first year, and he’s always thought her pretty. But it’s those nights spent patrolling the castle and grounds with Penelope when they were both prefects that really helped them fall in love together. People are more honest in the dark. Or it could just be Percy himself, stripped away from the rest of his family, feeling free. No expectations from the professors that he be as brilliant as Bill, as charmingly friendly as Charlie is. Words flowed easy, with Penelope, and their starlit kisses left his heart pounding and palms sweating.

He misses them both, in different ways.

Percy’s made it all the way to Diagon Alley. His flat, small and more than a bit battered, is out a couple of blocks away right in the middle of Muggle London. He looks at his watch – ten, time for supper then it’s off to bed with him – looks around and discreetly taps an ugly flowerpot with his wand. The top of the building rumbles, a whole floor rising upwards to reveal a new topmost flat. It’s his, leased for almost half his monthly pay. A worthwhile sacrifice for somewhere he can breathe without whispers dogging his every step.

There are plenty of protective charms and alarms that Percy has set up in place. One could never be too careful, living alone, with no one else to depend upon for your safety. Percy’s feeling the earlier giddy joy evaporating, completely gone once he steps inside his cold apartment – funny how a simple _thanks_ from a nameless stranger could have left him so warm for so long, sans coat.

He forgot to put a warming charm on the kettle before he left for work this morning. Bugger that. Percy sighs and pours out the cold water into a canteen, lighting the stove again. He could do it with a charm, but he always found it tasted off somehow, compared to if he boiled it the old-fashioned way. He used to talk about little things like this with Penelope, and Oliver.

When he’s out from his quick shower, it’s just begun whistling. Percy makes himself a cuppa, and takes out a stash of biscuits Katlynn from the Floo Network Authority had given him. As thanks for helping her reverse a blunder, she had told him, which Percy would normally have not thought more of if Miranda from his department had not confided in him, with a giggle, that Ursula wouldn’t mind having lunch with him either.

That was nice to know, even if he thought of Katlynn as nothing more than a decent colleague and friend, at any rate.

“Perce?”

Percy startles badly enough that the cup almost shatters against the floor. There’s more knocking on his door as Percy sets his cup down – he can’t keep it from _rattling_ – on the counter.

“Percy? Percy!”

He hasn’t seen Bill for three months. The last Percy had heard, Bill had been back in Egypt, helping the Gringotts goblins break wizarding curses placed on their plentiful tombs for more treasure.

Which meant that Bill was likely to break in here himself, too, if Percy didn’t let him in. Despite what most people thought, Bill wouldn’t think twice about blasting someone’s door down with a well-placed _reducto._ At home, it didn’t matter so much, but Bill barging into his dorm while he was in his first year at Hogwarts in the middle of him changing and giving Bill and some of his other dorm mates a full look of his boxers had been an embarrassment that Percy had needed whole weeks to live down.

Percy always found it ironic that Charlie, for all his Quidditch-loving madness at least knew to respect his personal space when they were younger.

Maybe Charlie’s love for animals had something to do with it?

“Percy? Percy, are you in there?” The knocking’s turned into insistent hammering, which grates at Percy’s nerves.

“ _What?!”_

Percy feels vindictively pleased that Bill jumps when he slams the door open. His muggle neighbours won’t hear or even feel a thing; more likely, they’d think it was the pesky wind rattling their tv antennas again.

“Percy.”

“Bill,” he says stiffly, trying to draw himself up taller, trying to will his body to close that two-inch gap of height between them both. He hadn’t missed Bill’s surprise either, and stares back steadily while Bill looks him up and down. Bill’s carrying a luggage bag. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re not going to invite me in? I just Apparated three times in a row, all the way across four different countries to come back to jolly old England. Wouldn’t say no to a nice cup of tea either, Perce.”

Percy’s lips twitch. He’s already a bad son.

“Please?”

“You can come in,” Percy mutters. Bill sets his bag right next to the door – he doesn’t want to stay long then – and takes a sweeping glance of Percy’s apartment. Percy wonders what he thinks of it, as compared to Bill’s residence in Egypt. A proper house, wide and spacious enough to accommodate all of them the one and only time they had actually went to visit him. Bill had been tanned very brown by the sun – even browner than Charlie had been, when they saw Charlie again a whole year later.

“It’s nice. Your apartment,” Bill clarifies, “it reminds me of my first place in Egypt. A little bare, but with little touches of you in it.”

Little touches? The only thing Percy had here besides the bare necessities was a bookshelf, with only one shelf filled with books he owned, scrounged up from discounts and sales or donations. The other shelves were all books borrowed off of friends and colleagues. “Yes, well,” Percy says vaguely, and brews a cuppa which Bill takes gratefully. Percy hadn’t missed the way he sat down on the armchair. Gingerly, as if afraid of aggravating an injury.

“Rough trip?”

Bill has, and always been, a smooth actor, but Percy’s been watching him talk to their mother for years. Percy often thinks that he picked it up from Bill, downplaying troubles, evading questions he’d rather not answer. “A little. Ran into some trouble before I Apparated away from Egypt.”

“Without enough time to get yourself healed up?”

“Didn’t want to stay away from home any longer than I had to.”

“Yet you made a stop here.”

“I wanted to see my favourite little brother.”

Percy presses his lips again together. He knows precisely where he stands on the family’s favourites lists.

“You can rest here, then leave whenever. There’s more tea in the kettle, and in the second cabinet from the right. I’m going to bed.”

“Already? It’s only half-past ten!”

“My workdays start early.” More like Percy went early to avoid any chance of running into Arthur. He didn’t actually do anything during those times, relaxing with a cuppa and making small talk with whoever had popped their heads in, or writing letters to old school friends.

“Really? Because I remember dad never went to work that early all throughout his years at the Ministry.”

“If he did, maybe he wouldn’t still be where he is after all these years of working there.”

Bill looks at him, eyebrows arched, his dragon fang earring an annoyingly sharp point gleaming ivory against the firelight.

“Dad likes being where he is.”

“I know.”

Bill then gives up, going straight to the point. “Perce, we both know why I’m really here.”

“Of course we do, you said earlier that you wanted to see your _favourite_ little brother.”

“I’m talking about your fight with dad, and that you ignored mom when she came to talk to you.” Bill says, a little anger seeping into his tone. Unfortunately for him, Percy knows it’s the same tone he used back when Bill was Prefect then Head Boy. A way to have others listen to him and take him seriously. Thinking back, Bill probably perfected it all throughout his life; years of making sure younger siblings fell in line, years of helping mom coax wailing, disgruntled younger brothers and a sister into obedience with just a few short sentences and the occasional bribe. The perfect eldest son, who always had Arthur’s ear and whom Arthur was proudest of.

Percy? Whatever he did was never good enough, merely filling in the standards Bill had left behind like a shopping list. Fred and George went out of their way to make his life miserable. Ron was more inclined to follow their example, to a lesser extent. Ginny did, sometimes, but he knew she always looked longingly at Fred and George’s antics, torn, even during those few times she did.

“What about it?”

Bill, perfect Bill is at a loss for words over the sharpness of Percy’s own tone. Percy can see in Bill’s eyes how quickly he’s thinking, how rapidly he’s rearranging his words and revising his approach to this conversation. Percy’s lost all inclinations to care about giving any ground when it came to this.

“I don’t know,” Bill says at last. “Why don’t you tell me your side of the story? I’ve only read mom and dad’s side. Everyone’s letters were a jumbled mess.”

For one blinding moment, Percy hates him. Percy hates, hates, _hates_ Bill, who has come here to drag up the awful, rage-tinged memory he has of the last night Percy spent at the Burrow.

Percy doesn’t regret that night. He will _never_ regret that night.

“What’s there to tell? You can just waltz right back to the Burrow. I’m sure Fred and George have all the important parts covered between them. Even if they didn’t, well, there’s still Ron and Ginny to pick up all the pieces they forgot.”

“No, Perce. I want _your_ side of the story. You’re not…” Bill struggles with himself, “you’re not the one to make mom and dad worry. You’re not.”

“Maybe I was saving up all the teenage rebellion in me for just the right moment.”

“Maybe. But I’d bet my whole life’s savings that it’s not. Perce, please? If you’re really mad at dad, and it’s not – it’s not just a sudden loss of your temper, then I need to know why. I need to know it from your point of view, not dad’s, or mom’s, or the twins and Ron’s and Ginny’s. I need to understand _you_.”

This is what gets him every time. Bill is so good at making others let their guard down, so, so good at making you feel valued, important. He _cares_ , and is so good at showing that he does, in a way that never offends others.

Perfect, perfect _Bill_.

“You’re really not going to say anything?”

“ _Fine!_ Fine. You want to know what it was like, working at the Ministry? It’s wonderful. A dream come true. One step up the rung of what I’ve always wanted. People smiling to my face, telling me it’s lovely to meet Arthur’s son. And then they turn around and laugh amongst themselves over how he’s _as batty as old Bathilda Bagshot_. Some people, they wait till I’m out of earshot. Others, they’ll say it right to my face, especially if _dear old Arthur_ made them mad for one reason or another.

Every other time I meet someone new, someone who might actually be helpful in my career, I’ll have to hear them ask after _him_ , hear them whisper about how I could turn out just like him, then know that they’re going to second-guess everything I do. Imagine. Imagine it happening to you, every other person you meet every day laughing at you because your _dear old dad_ is dotty Arthur Weasley, who loves fooling around with all the silly items Muggles made, what a _disgrace for a wizard_ that Arthur is.  

And then stupid pranks and hate mail and complaints kept coming in. You’ve ever dealt with that, Bill? _Have_ you? Howlers and cursed letters and parcels filled with dragon dung slipped into your mail. Fine. It’s all part of the job. Department of International Magical Cooperation, where you deal with complaints and enquiries in all forms from wizarding folk all over the world about the crackpot wizards from your nation. Then imagine. Imagine finding out later on that _your own bloody brothers_ were the ones sending parcels full of dragon dung to you, that they’ve been doing it since you got your new job. _Just_ a silly prank, lighten up a little, they’ve been doing stupid stuff like this to you since you were all _kids,_ it’s just a joke, Arthur says, see the other side of the Galleon for once, Percy; that’s why people don’t like you as much, Percy, you’re always so _humourless_ ; look at the twins, they’re always good for a laugh. Don’t bring your anger from work home, Percy, it’s never a good thing, leave it all in the office behind you at the end of the work day. Well, that worked bloody well for him, didn’t it?

When Mr. Crouch promoted me to his assistant and came into the office less and less, it was my chance to prove myself. Sure, he was apparently under the Imperius curse, but how would I have known? I was only _just_ under him, for less than a few _months_. You’d think, with all the other people in the Ministry who’s known him for even longer, who called him their friend, they’d have known _he_ was acting strange, the few times he’d show up for work. They’d have thought to maybe, oh, _pay him a visit_ , make sure he’s alright, and that it’s just old age wearing him down, and not that he was being Imperiused. Ha ha, who’d have thought, the former Head of the Magical Law Enforcement being upended by You-Know-Who that has miraculously returned from the dead?”

Bill looks like he wants to interrupt, but stops himself. Good. Percy wasn’t done yet.

“Then I’m being blamed, because of course they need a scapegoat. Who else was in the best position to? Crackpot Arthur Weasley’s son, personal assistant to Barty Crouch, apparently a power hungry _freak_ , with no ties to anyone important or powerful. Go back to work, with an inquiry looming over your head, one that everyone knows and is whispering about behind your back, dreading, dreading that you’ve just lost your very first job and probably all chances of your dreams coming true. Wondering what your parents are _really_ thinking, even though they’re reassuring you that it’s all right, everything’s going to be alright.

Finally, finally the inquiry’s happening, you’re sitting in front of the Wizengamot, telling your side of the story, as truthfully as you can without making anything else about you seem worse, listening to their slander about your own father, then about you, and all the while you’re holding in your temper, but that’s easy, isn’t it? You’ve had practice. You’ve had _years_ of your little brother’s pranks behind your back to hold it all in, even smile a little at the few people you know might like you a little more than most.

Mercy of mercies. The Wizengamot decides you’re fine, that it was due to youthful foolishness and not knowing Mr. Crouch very well. In fact, they’re so impressed by you that a few days later, you’re promoted to being an assistant for the Minister of Magic! It’s a miracle. You’re so happy, you’re so, so grateful that you weren’t just fired from your very first job. You spend after hours moving your things to your new work desk. You go home. Tell your parents you’ve been promoted, after that fiasco; they’ll be ecstatic for you, right?”

Percy’s lips curl. Bill looks pained. “I’m _sure_ you know how well that went.”

“Percy…”

“But you want to know, right? You want to _understand._ So here’s what happened. I went back home, tell mom and dad about my promotion, thinking they’ll be happy for me after all the worrying. Surprise, surprise, they’re not. What’s wrong, I ask them. Aren’t you glad? I’ve been promoted, not fired. Of course we’re happy for you, Percy, mom says, but she’s lying. Dear old dad is still sombre, face scrunching in that way of his where you can just tell he doesn’t think something’s alright. Dad, what’s the matter? Then he says, ' _you shouldn’t have been promoted, Percy_.'”

“I shouldn’t have been promoted, he says. Then he has the nerve, the _fucking nerve_ to say that the Ministry only wants a spy from our family, because they know Harry’s close to Ron, spends summers with us. That’s the only reason I’ve been promoted to such a high ranking post. If that’s what he thinks, after everything, after I’ve worked my bloody wand off for this, while he just sits there happily tinkering away with all his Muggle toys, barely even earning enough to get mom by and then thinks I’ll actually tell anyone _anything_ about my family to be used against them – I’ll solve his all his problems about it in one go, then, and solve all of _mine_ too.”

He has Bill’s full attention. Has had it from the very beginning, since even before Bill had walked into his flat. Now though, there’s flat surprise in Bill’s eyes, mixed in with sympathy. And Percy – he’s sick of that. Has been sick of that for a long time now, seeing the very same look in his friendlier colleagues after the news had slipped out, somewhere, somehow. It definitely hadn’t been from Percy; he’s always been tight-lipped about personal matters, and he’s never drunk so much that he’d let slip about family issues, not since that time he and Oliver had climbed up the rooftop two nights before graduation and finished a whole bottle of firewhisky between them.

There’s only a handful of alternative ways it could have gotten out, and Percy doesn’t like to think about any one of them.

“How long have you been keeping all that in?” Bill asks finally, voice quiet compared to the harsh breaths Percy was struggling to draw into his lungs.

“Does it even matter?”

“Perce – “

“ _Don’t_.”

Again, another stretch of silence. Against all his wishes, shame starts bubbling up in his throat the longer Bill stays quiet and looks at him. Percy wants to throw him out. This is his home. His space. One where he swore, upon getting it, that no one actually blood-related to him would ever step in. He had even barred his own mother from coming in, even when he could hear her sobbing from outside the door while he closeted himself as far away as he could, not trusting himself to even stay near the entrance and not give in, not let her in and let her talk him into going home.

“You should leave,” Percy says, once he can trust his voice to not break on him. “I don’t want to say anything else I’ll regret later. Goodnight, Bill.”

Bill nods, once, but doesn’t move. Percy marches towards his door and bangs it open. He doesn’t glare at Bill, but it’s a near thing. Bill gets up smoothly, then pauses in front of Percy. He conjures a slip of paper, handing it to Percy with both hands. “For you.”

An invitation. A wedding invitation. _You are cordially invited to attend the wedding of William Arthur Weasley and Fleur Isabelle Delacour,_ date set six months later, elegant cursive gold bright against the snow-white parchment, a picture of the happy couple pressed cheek-to-cheek against each other, waving earnestly at him. They look like the perfect pair; handsome Bill and his ethereal fiancée. She looks vaguely familiar, though it’s hard to tell since the Fleur in the picture is snogging Bill enthusiastically, all their love for each other announced loud and proud to the world.

“This was what I really came here for.” Bill says quietly. “I want you to come.”

“ _He_ won’t want me there.” So did Fred and George and Ron and Ginny. Who even knew with Charlie, he probably had zero idea about the family drama going on while out in the Romanian wilderness.

“Does it matter? It’s _my_ wedding and my guest list. And _I_ want you there. Fleur too. You’re the only one she hasn’t really met yet, not counting that couple of hours during the Triwizard tournament.”

Triwizard tournament – oh. The champion from Beauxbatons; the one whose sister Harry had also saved alongside Ron from the lake. Percy takes another look at the happy couple in the invitation now staring deeply into each other’s eyes.

“She looks like a lovely person.”

“She is.” Bill’s smile is sappy, lovelorn, and the scars across his face seem to fade away from sheer joy. Percy knows that look from the mirror – it’s frighteningly similar to his own smile when he received letters from Penelope, back when they were still dating each other.

“I’m happy for you.”

“I’m happy for me too.” Percy doesn’t laugh, but he manages a wan smile. Bill’s grin turns brighter, but he also turns sombre quickly. “Perce, that invite – you can drop in, anytime, even if you send back a reply saying that you’re not attending. Take all the time you need to think it over. And if you really decide not to come, I understand. I do understand, and I won’t be mad at you for it.”

“I’m sorry Bill, I’m not going. It’s your wedding day, one of the most important days you’ll ever have. I won’t do anything to ruin it.”

“You wouldn’t, Percy. It’d be better for me with you just being there.” Bill hesitates, at the door. “Percy – about You-Know-Who – “

Percy hesitates as well. “- you don’t believe he’s back, do you?”

Percy reluctantly shuts the door. Some conversations should never be held openly, and he wordlessly casts a muffling charm, and layers it with two different repelling charms – one for objects, one for humans. “I don’t know what to believe,” he says frankly. “Harry – I know Harry. He’s not a liar, even if he _is_ hot-tempered and has a tendency to run his mouth when angry. Besides the rule-breaking. And Cedric Diggory _is_ dead - “ Percy swallows, because Cedric had been a friend of his too, not as close, but still a friend, “- no matter how much cover up there is, and it ties in, with everything about Mr. Crouch. I don’t know, Bill. I just don’t. I can’t believe that You-Know-Who is alive. He’s been dead _thirteen years._ How does a wizard – how does _any_ wizard come back from the dead?”

“I don’t know either, Percy, but I trust Harry. He’s a kid, yes, but I was there the night of the Triwizard Tournament finals. I saw him, sobbing over the corpse of another kid barely a few years older than himself, after they stumbled out from the maze over an hour after they’ve both disappeared.” Bill grimaces. “If You-Know-Who has returned, then he must have done it with dark magic, or really, really old magic. I’ve seen enough curses within the tombs in Egypt to know that there are some things out there, that there were wizards and other magical folk out there who can perform feats that we can’t even imagine.”

“So you believe that You-Know-Who’s back?”

Bill shakes his head. “I hope he isn’t, for all our sakes. But it won’t hurt to be vigilant. If he is back, or it’s someone else, wanting to be him… you’ve read about how he works, I presume?”

By getting his hands on a wide variety of them. So many of the books about those dark times had been heavily doctored, glossed over with only the barest of atrocities he had done mentioned. But there were a few, detailed enough, personal enough that were kept far away from the public sight, and a handful of pen pals from overseas had been kind enough to owl him copies of the ones he had taken personal interest in. Never available in Britain, because fools had decided it was against the public’s better interest to have history as important as that wiped from their minds.

“He’ll start by influencing people, one by one…”

Bill nods grimly. “Keep your wand with you at all times, Percy. Some potions on hand would be a good idea, too. Dittany’s. Practicing Occlumency as well. If he starts gathering followers anywhere -”

“He’ll start with the Ministry. Everyone in positions of power.” Like Mr. Crouch had been. Percy supresses a shudder.

Bill knows, anyway. His face softens, and he clasps Percy’s shoulder. “Be careful. I’ll be in touch with you soon.”

“Another visit?”

Percy feels the disappointed drop of his stomach when Bill shakes his head. “No. I don’t think I’ll have much time to, before I have to leave Britain again. And it’s only going to get busier from now on, for you and me both.”

“Yes. Of course. Well,” Percy swallows, “goodnight, Bill. Don’t forget to see to your wounds.”

Bill’s lips twitch. “Goodnight, Percy.”

Bill Apparates away. Percy’s left staring at his empty doorstep, before a cold breeze slaps him in the face and he hurriedly backtracks into his apartment, thinking.

He’ll have to plan. _Be vigilant, be careful,_ just in case. But before that, there’s something else he needs to do.

* * *

“Hermes?” Bill shakes himself out of his stupor and hurriedly helps the handsome owl come in. It ruffles its feathers importantly – in a manner so like Percy that Bill can’t help a grin – and sticks its leg out. Bill unties the letter, giving it a head rub and some owl treats before it soars back out the high ceiling of Gringotts.

The letter he eagerly unfurls makes sense, up until Bill reads words that Percy would never really use, and his suspicions flare. He takes the letter back home with him – Seashell Cottage which Fleur has yet to move into, which he’s already bought and is midway through furnishing – and deciphers it by candlelight.

A conjuring spell. Bill scrunches his face up, and tries it, repeating the words over and over again until he finally has a small black box sitting before him. He pokes at it with his wand, decides there’s nothing to it and opens it. Inside is a neatly folded up square of paper, along with a tiny tub of medicinal cream.

_Dear Bill,_

_I know you always like a challenge, so I hope you liked this too._

_Once you’re done reading this, my wedding gift for you and Fleur will appear. I hope you’ll both like it._

_Congratulations, again. I wish you two all the best._

_Love,_

_Percy_

Bill laughs in startled delight as the paper catches fire itself and burns, dust scattering, transfiguring itself into a ceramic figure of a red-furred weasel lying on a bed of flowers. Even as Bill watches, the weasel moves, standing up on its hind legs, a flower in its paws, holding it out to him like a peace offering.

Bill places it on the mantel, where it will be the very first thing anyone who comes into his home sees.


End file.
